Future Comes Soon Enough

Lunar Linux Installation Part I

2008-12-16T16:05:00.000-08:00

The first place to visit before installing Lunar Linux is obviously the installation wiki page over at lunar-linux.org. It's pretty exhaustive and it is a definite prerequisite before installing. Having said that I am still posting my experiences about the installation, since a few people at work have been asking me for the same and I thought well, may be for future references they can refer my blog. Ok, let's start!

I loaded the Lunar cd in and went to BIOS first (pressing F2, may vary with different machines!), and changed the boot order to boot from cd first. Once that was done, the machine booted to the Lunar install screen. I am gonna post some screenshots of the installation process so that they can be referred to in case of any hangups. These screens are for Lunar Linux 1.6.2 and not for Lunar Linux 1.6.4 beta that I used! However the install screens are mostly identical. I would also like to mention that the screens I am using are from engelsman, over at Lunar Linux forums, who is a very active member of the Lunar Linux community. So all credit goes to him ofcourse!

1. Anyway here's the boot welcome screen

It's a very nifty installer and pretty well thought out. So pressing enter takes you to the next step.

2. Now comes the first step

Its also very clear. If you wanna read some info about Lunar, you can have a look by choosing option I and then coming back to this screen. So I chose F, to get to Step 2.

3. Setting system defaults

As you can see, we are presented with various options to use as default settings to proceed with the installation. Let's go through each of 'em.

4. Choosing a Keyboard Map

Depending on your keyboard, you can choose the appropriate one. If its English US, then default map should do it. I use a German keyboard, so I had to choose the German keymap, de.

5. Choosing a console font

I just chose the default font, so there's nothin special here.

6. Language Preference

I wanted to have US English, so it was my default locale.

7. Choosing the Text Editor

vi was quite obvious!

8. Time to move on to the next phase

You can see that if we were right in our choices, the options are highlighted with green. This means everything is ok, and we can proceed to the next level.

Lunar Linux

2008-12-15T12:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry 'bout the delay, had been out of town for sometime. Anyway lemme continue about my experiences with Lunar Linux! As I mentioned in my previous post, I decided to check Lunar Linux out. Read that Lunar was forked out of another source based distro, Sorcerer Linux, and was spearheaded by Chuck Meade from RedHat for a long time. So first thing, ended up checkin the official website. Don't know why, the moment I saw the Rockhopper penguin I was kinda hooked. Checked out the relevant docs, and it seemed like it wasn't that difficult, and since I am used to Gentoo, some of the installation docs were familiar. After having done that, thought about checking the forums to just get an idea about the kinda problems or issues that one might come across, that might transcend general *nix hangups, and might be Lunar Linux specific. Went thro the threads and I was kinda surprised that the user base was so low and some of the threads hadn't been updated for more than a year or so. But read most of the Installation problems threads anyway. But later on realized that the Lunar Linux community is very small but driven by a totally dedicated group of developers wordlwide. Also read that most of the developers can be reached at the lunar channel in freenode most of the time, so I was hopeful that I could get help if my system panicked! At this point I decided there was no turning back! Decided to burn an iso and test it out. Obviously the last stable release of Lunar was a year ago, and since the latest beta release was already available, decided to give the beta version a whirl! The release candidate is called "Lacus Autumni", after the region of lunar mare that lies on the western limb of the moon. It ships with the latest kernel, 2.6.27. The zipped iso was roughly 300MB and the download was finished in a matter of seconds. I got the cd ready after that, made a hot pot of coffee and also some Jägermeister, and put on my usb warm jacket on and was ready to install! Continued in the next post.....

May the Source be with You!

2008-12-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

Once I decided about tweaking my old system which has many limitations as any old machine would have, it was time to choose the distro of my interest. Since I wanted to build the system and optimize it for my needs, nothin less and nothin more, I thought it would be great to use a source based distro again, so that I have complete control over the code I am compiling, and I can remove some unwarranted dependencies that I might probably never use. Bottom line is I wanted to use a source based distro, else I would have gone ahead with Arch ofcourse.

Alright, there are a few source based distributions around, which one should I use? The first thing that came into mind was Gentoo obviously. But I have had prior experience with Gentoo, when I was using it predominantly a year and a half ago or so, but I always experienced problems with portage, and at one time my system was kaputt beyond repair, so decided against Gentoo! But Gentoo has improved over the years I know, but still because of my prior experience I decided not to, thats all, I will be glad to go all technical about the issues I faced, but I won't. What about the grand daddy of them all, Slackware, you ask? Yes I thought about Slack, had used it long time back, but just decided may be next time. Thought about the other distros like SourceMage and so on, and then I came across Sorcerer Linux, which ultimately led me to something out of this world, Lunar Linux!

Which Linux Distribution?

2008-12-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest strengths of Linux is that there are hundreds of choices available as to the distributions are concerned. One of the common questions that I get from ppl who look at my machine is how can they make their windows look like that. When I tell them that its actually Linux, I get asked if they can also try it out. I immediately give them a LiveCD to try it out and become more comfortable and decide for themselves if they wanna take the plunge. I never force them to use it though, coz I hate being some kinda Linux preacher, its useless and I hate ppl who do that. Currently I tell them to try out Ubuntu first for its complete ease starting from the installation process to get the system running completely. Please don't get me wrong that I am kinda biased in that regard, but its just my opinion that Ubuntu and its variants are the best gateway distros for the Windows user. Once you kinda get used to the Linux philosophy and are familiar with its use, you can move on for other distributions that give you more control in setting up the system from bottom up. Such an excellent binary based distro in my opinion is undoubtedly Arch Linux. Infact a couple of my systems run Arch and I have no complaints whatsoever.

The reason I mention this is because of something I tried out over the last weekend. Since the love of my life is currently in Japan doing her study thesis (Studienarbeit, as they call here in Germany) and me being bored without her, thought of spending sometime tweaking my system and building it from scratch. The following few posts are a firsthand account of my efforts in that direction. So keep read

Other Apps.

2008-11-25T16:05:00.000-08:00

I love urxvt! Sometimes I do like the terminals transparent. In xmonad they look perfect. But under fvwm i like them the way they are to have a matching background color with the window decor background. I defined them in my .Xdefaults as usual. I put together this one, mostly by following sen7 as usual. I did only some minor changes, like the geometry, and the fonts and so on. Anyway here are my .Xdefaults, if anyone is interested!

*foreground: #DDDDDD
*background: #121212
!black
*color0: #353535
*color8: #666666
!red
*color1: #AE4747
*color9: #EE6363
!green
*color2: #556B2F
*color10: #9ACD32
!brown/yellow
*color3: #DAA520
*color11: #FFC125
!blue
*color4: #6F99B4
*color12: #7C96B0
!magenta
*color5: #8B7B8B
*color13: #D8BFD8
!cyan
*color6: #A7A15E
*color14: #F0E68C
!white
*color7: #DDDDDD
*color15: #FFFFFF

!urxvt settings
urxvt*foreground: #DDDDDD
urxvt*background: #121212
urxvt*depth: 32
urxvt*saveLines: 2000
urxvt*scrollTtyKeypress:true
urxvt*scrollTtyOutput: false
urxvt*scrollBar: false
urxvt*loginShell: true
urxvt*borderLess: false
urxvt*internalBorder: 0
urxvt*termName: rxvt-unicode
!urxvt*inheritPixmap: true
!urxvt*shading: 80
!urxvt*fading: 50
!urxvt*tintColor: #0f1f0f
urxvt*font: xft:Liberation Mono:size=8
urxvt*cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|'"
urxvt*print-pipe: cat > $(echo urxvt.dump.`date +'%Y%M%d%H%m%S'`)
urxvt*secondaryScroll: true
urxvt*mapAlert: true
urxvt*utmpInhibit: true
urxvt*perl-lib: /usr/lib/urxvt/perl/
urxvt*perl-ext-common: default,matcher
urxvt*urlLauncher: /opt/mozilla/bin/firefox
urxvt*matcher.button: 1
!urxvt*matcher.pattern.1: \\bwww\\.[\\w-]+\\.[\\w./?&@#-]*[\\w/-]
urxvt*keysym.S-Prior: ^[[5;2~
urxvt*keysym.S-Next: ^[[6;2~
urxvt*cursorBlink: true
urxvt*cursorColor: #DDDDDD
urxvt*geometry: 130x40
!urxvt*background: rgba:1212/1212/1212/eeee
!urxvt*background: [95]#262524

!xterm settings
xterm*dynamicColors: true
xterm*utf8: 2
xterm*eightBitInput: true
xterm*saveLines: 32767
xterm*scrollTtyKeypress:true
xterm*scrollTtyOutput: false
xterm*scrollBar: false
xterm*loginShell: true
xterm*faceName: Dejavu Sans Mono:pixelsize=10
xterm*jumpScroll: true
xterm*multiScroll: true
xterm*toolBar: false

!Xcursor*theme: ghost
Xft*dpi: 96
Xft*antialias: 1
Xft*hinting: 1
Xft*hintstyle: hintfull
Xft*rgba: rgb

xpdf*enableFreetype: yes
xpdf*antialias: yes
xpdf*foreground: white
xpdf*background: black
xpdf*urlCommand: /opt/mozilla/bin/firefox %s
xpdf*viKeys: on

Just copy and paste the quoted text and save the file as .Xdefaults in your home directory. Then fire up urxvt or xterm.

Screen Details Contd.

2008-11-25T15:51:00.000-08:00

The gtk theme used in the screen is the amazing Neutronium Deep Black from my dear friend sen. Get his theme by clicking on the picture.

The icons are Simply Grey from Anton. Just click on the picture for the download link.

The wallpaper is also from sen7. Same procedure, click on the picture!

Screen Details

2008-11-25T15:40:00.000-08:00

Continuing from my previous post, let me post some details about the screen. Before that I would like to mention that I am comfortable with most Linux distributions, but for work related purposes, prefer Ubuntu and Arch Linux. But my home machines run a lot of different flavors. One runs on a Debain Sid, Gentoo Linux dual boot. Another one exclusively runs on Arch. A very old computer is one of my most prefered treasures, since that's the one I use for testing. That one (sorry John Mccain!) runs on Linux from scratch.

When it comes to the desktop itself, I am kinda conservative, and love minimalism. Like most I started exclusively with Gnome and KDE and moved on to XFCE and stuff. But rite now I alternate between Fvwm, Openbox and Xmonad. When I am coding feverishly or running simulations, it's mostly xmonad, otherwise it's fvwm all the way.

The desk in the previous post runs fvwm as the window manager with some usual apps. The fvwm theme is a modified theme of a certain theme developed by mutze@deviantart. I have been thinking for sometime to post some fvwm desks and some configs alonngside, will do so in the coming few days.

The apps running are thunar, urxvt, screen, with my most favored shell zsh. More about them in the next post!

Finally my Screen!

2008-11-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

Now that resolution has been rectified, how 'bout a screenshot? Details about the screenshot, and themes and stuff will be posted in my subsequent posts. Keep watching!

NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS Install in Linux

2008-11-25T06:13:00.000-08:00

Ok here's how it started. I started a random Boolean network simulation on Thursday and went home. Came back to work the next day with high hopes that my simulations would have been over and I could go through some of my results. Besides, the day being a Friday, I just wanted to do that and wanted to take off a little after lunch time to spend the whole evening with my girlfriend! But once I switched on the monitor, all i could see was a glorious grainy rainbow that completely overwhelmed my screen. I restarted the system and it was very clear that the graphic card had gone kapputt, since the initial startup screen, the one with vendor details was screwed up, and so was the bios! Got damn pissed off, ordered a new graphic card and was informed that I would get it only on Monday. So did some reading and left for home a little later.

Fast forward to yesterday! My colleague informed me early in the morning that he has a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS graphic card at his disposal and I can use it and don't have to wait until I get the graphic card from my supplier. I thought that was a good idea. It's one of those perks you get when you share your office with the System Administrator! I got to work, and promptly opened the box and removed the broken graphic card. Four capacitors in the card had blown up, and no wonder I saw rainbows on my screen. Plugged the new card in, closed the box and restarted the system.

Went and got myself a cup of coffee and smoked a ciggy and came back to my desk. And there it was the login screen finally, but the resolution screwed up. I have a Fujitsu-Siemens A22W-3A model by the way. I thought, well no big deal, I have to get the appropriate driver installed. So logged in and naturally my Hardware manager complained that a proprietary driver needs to be enabled to get the system running properly. And I checked it out, and it advised me to install the latest glx driver for the graphic card. Did it and tried looking up the screen resolution details. It looked correct, 1680x1050, though the vertical refresh rate was off by 10 Hz. I rebooted the system, thinking the resolution problem would have been recitifed. But I was mistaken! :(

The resolution was still screwed up with the screen a little bit to the right and after inspection of the screen resolution and xorg.conf, it was very clear that there was something wrong, on the driver front. Coz any manual modification of the xorg.conf file, with the appropriate modelines added, there was still no change. Invoking nvidia-settings was of no help either. After a lot of trials with manually editing the xorg.conf file and tweaking nvidia-settings, I simply gave up! :(

Finally I decided may be its better to download the driver directly and install it, overruling the Hardware manager's recommendations. Got some pointers in some forums and started tryin it out. The following are the steps I used:

1. Editing linux-restricted-modules-common
Fire up linux-restricted-modules-common with your favorite text editor. I belong to the temple of emacs, hence emacs was my natural choice.
Command:

sudo emacs -nw /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common

2. Added this line: DISABLED_MODULES="nv nvidia_new"

3. Make sure that build-essential is installed. If you are in a debian based distro, just use apt-get:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

4. Downloading the NVIDIA driver of choice. You could either do it by directly going Here and choosing the appropriate driver for your graphic card. I have a GeForce 7600 GS graphic card, hence I need the driver for the same. Another method of downloading is to use CLI and simply invoke this command:

wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/177.82/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-177.82-pkg1.run

5. Once you have the driver downloaded, it's time to go old school, and ignore the desktop environment. I use gdm as my login manager, so I needed to stop it to go to command line. You can do so by invoking this command:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Sometimes, if you just get a blank screen, just press Ctrl+Alt+F1 and you should be in the command line.

6. Now it's time to install the driver. Assuming you are in the directory where you downloaded your driver as per Step 4. Use the command:

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-177.82-pkg1.run

You will be presented first with Licensing details. Just Accept the License and the driver will be automatically installed. Once the primary install is done, you will be asked if the appropriated kernel modules can be located. Just say yes and it will most probably report that the modules were not found, but it will ask you if it can build the kernel module itself. Again, Affirmative! If all went well, it will build the module and report all done.

7. Now you can restart the gdm. Use this command:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

8. I logged in again, still no change. Launched nvidia-settings and now I was presented with more options, like Xineramma activation and two screens. I simply disabled the crt screen and used the DFP-0 on GPU-0 model and used 1680x1050 resolution with 60Hz VertRefresh rate. and saved it to xorg.conf, and the screen refreshed to the appropriate resolution!

Finally my sweet 1680x1050 screen was back!

Here's a screenshot of how the nvidia-settings program looks like.

Note: I could get my monitor use the full resolution only by this way. I couldn't get it done any other way. May be others might have had similar problems and might have rectified it automatically by automatic driver install as recommended by their software package programs. But in my case only the manual install of the very latest driver corrected the problem. So use the method that I had described above with caution!

Updates!

2008-11-25T06:08:00.001-08:00

Sorry 'bout the lack of updates for a while! My girlfriend is flyin to Japan next week to do her study thesis for about six months, hence I dedicated the last few days for her. My graphic card also crashed and got it replaced just yesterday. But getting my system to use the 1680x1050 resolution was such a pain in the butt. I am sure some folks might have had the same problem. So in my next post I am gonna post how I did it.

Countdown to Change

2008-11-18T17:26:00.001-08:00

Elegant-Dark Green Gtk Theme

2008-11-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

Here's my second gtk theme, Elegant-Dark Green aka Elegant-Matrix, which is another rip off of the hugely popular Elegant-Brit series, and it’s adapted version Dark Brit! This theme will satiate the needs of folks looking for a minimal, fully functional dark theme for the Gnome Desktop. This theme was born when I had been doing simulations one nite, and cudn’t sleep, so decided to relax by workin on this theme! I uploaded the theme over at gnome-look as well. Likewise, the theme will look great with the perfect wall!

Wallpaper: Kaein wallpaper from Roberto Urso is perfect for this theme!

Kaein Download

Icons: Any green icon theme will work great! Personally I prefer Oxygen_Refit Green! I also realized that a white icon theme also goes great! Like Oxygen_Refit White, Area White or White Reflections!

Oxygen_Refit Green Icons

Fonts:

Coming to Fonts, well snap, anorexia, from the artwiz font family will luk great. I tried aquabase 7, and it looked perfect.

Now a screenshot of the theme in action!

Elegant-Evi Gtk Theme

2008-11-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

Elegant Brit gtk theme is one of my favorite themes ever! I used the theme for a long time sometime back and once my girlfriend came into my life, I decided to do something for her using the Elegant theme. I made a pink version of the Elegant theme and uploaded it over at gnome-look. It's called Elegant-Evi and I guess a great theme for those feminine linux buffs out there! From my own experience, I believe any theme will look great on a system depending on the wallpaper, iconset, and fonts used. So here are my suggestions for this theme!

Wallpaper1:
I found this wonderful wall over at desktopography and I think its perfect for this theme!

Sustainable House

Wallpaper2:
Another great wallpaper from the amazing j3concepts@deviantart!

Morning Coma

Wallpaper 3:
If your are a Debian fan like me, then this wall is all yours!

Debian Basix

Icons:
fratrip's Powered Icon Theme goes great with this theme!

Powered Icon Theme

Fonts - Sometimes, the ideal font can make a lotta difference on the aesthetics! I used Aquabase in the previous screenshots, but I recently found out that Futura Condensed makes it much better. If you folks don’t find those fonts, just drop a comment. I will link them rite here as well!

Now the Gtk&Metacity

Elegant-Evi Download Page

How about a screenshot of the theme in action?

Comments welcome!

Blog Revamp!

2008-11-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

Its time to update this blog I guess. I know it's been a long long time since I updated this blog, but of late I have been posting a lot of linux related stuff in my other blog, so have planned to post linux stuff rite here! I will use my other blog to post exclusive stuff related to paranormal phenomena, so that the blog stays true to its very idea!
So you ask what kinda Linux stuff? Mostly stuff regarding my screenshots, a few info about the themes I created and modified, and a lot of info about various window managers, and my choice of some programs and so on! So let's get started!

Imperial Star Destroyer - LEGO

2007-12-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

Initially I planned to buy the Imperial Destroyer Lego set sometime later, since it was too expensive! But then realized the price ain’t gonna fall any further, and so bought it today! Here’s a picture of the boxed Lego set! It cost me around 120 bucks! But it’s more than worth it! I have almost finished it, and will post the picture tomorrow!

Here's the picture of the boxed set!

I posted the same on my other blog too!

Feels like eternity!

2007-12-26T13:36:00.001-08:00

I admit, it's been a long long time since I had posted any update here! Anyway now that the new year is approaching, I have decided to update this blog frequently! I also have a paranormal themed blog as well, which has become kinda general blog of late, but I am planning to post more of the general stuff rite here from now on! So stay tuned!

Linux Screenshot!

2007-07-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

I have been using Linux for more than eight years now. Started out with Red Hat, then tried Debian, SuSe, and then finally settling down with Debian again. I have four computers, and run Linux on all four of 'em. My office laptop is powered by Debian Etch, and so is my desktop! My old computer at home runs Debian Sarge, and a new Dual Core system runs Ubuntu Feisty Fawn!

I always tweak my desktop to make it match my tastes! Am a fan of dark themes and of late have been alternating between the Cobra and Kore themes! Both themes are available at gnome-look.org and are two of the best dark themes available for Gnome in the internets rite now!

Just felt like posting a screenshot of my desktop here!

Click on Thumbnail for Original Size

Details:

GTK2 Theme: Cobra
Metacity: Kore-metacity
Icons: Dropline Neu
Firefox Theme: NASA Night Launch

Another SysBio Conference!

2007-07-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

Well it's that time of the year where there are a lot of conferences here in Europe. Our institute is organizing the Foundations of Systems Biology in Engineering Conference (FOSBE) in September this year. And my boss told me to apply for the SYSBIOHEALTH Symposium organized by University of Milan, Italy from October 16-19 this year. Since I am working in a project that has a huge pharma relevance, I think its a good idea to apply for the conference. And those folks are asking for a three page Abstract! Now that is weird! A three page Abstract, gimme a break!

Here is the Conference Page!

SYSBIOHEALTH

Parasitic Mind Control?

2007-07-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

Toxoplasma gondii

I just found an interesting article in livescience about how a parasitic organism can alter the mind of its host for its own benefit. Someone even submitted the same to digg.com. The article talks about researchers experimenting with rats. The parasite in question is Toxoplasma gondii. It's eggs are picked up by rats and eventually they find their way into the gut of cats who eat these rats. Though most rats don't show any sign of being infected with the parasite. Luks like the parasite is perfectly evolved to act like a good parasite!

Researchers at Oxford have found out that healthy rats normally avoid areas that are doused with cat urine. But the ones with Toxoplasma in their system don't show any difference to such areas! Seems like the parasite tricks the rats into getting into such danger zones hoping that their hosts will be hunted down and they can get to their new homes, namely, the gut of the cats!

I just thought to myself, that this would be a perfect idea for a scifi novel or something. The article also talks about what kind of impact might be effected on humans with such infections. It's an interesting read, no doubt!

Here's the link to the original article!

Mind Control by Parasites

Paranormal Blog

2007-07-04T06:40:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to mention, that I have another blog, which is completely dedicated to my interests in the paranormal. I am an amateur paranormal researcher myself, and have been interested in it since i was 14. Don't forget to check it out

Here's the address!

My Paranormal Blog

Ultimate Geek Vacations

2007-07-03T11:01:00.001-07:00

Talkin about Geek Heavens, WIRED Mag has come out with a list of places that are most geeky! CERN figures in the list as well! Here's the list of places.

1. Tokyo
2. Chernobyl
3. Palo Alto
4. CERN
5. Mauna Kea Observatory
6. Sidi Driss Hotel (Star Wars Tatooine)
7. New Zealand
8. The South Pole

Here's the original article from WIRED Mag: The Best Geek Vacations

LHC New Schedule!

2007-07-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

LHC - 27 Km Circumference

Robert Aymar, the director general of CERN, announced that the Large Hadron Collider will start up on May 2008. The collider was originally planned to start its low energy run by the end of this year but the plans had to be scrapped due to minor delays. But the main culprit in this delay has to do with a magnet assembly supplied by Fermilab. The 'Inner Triplet', as it is called, failed a pressure test! Fortunately, the source of the problem has been identified and the repairs are currently under progress!

A typical Inner Triplet, Fermilab, USA

I am happy that the new dates have been announced! It seems like the collider will star up and run in full go without having to perform the low energy runs first. Whatever may be the case, LHC, in my mind can devastate the theoretical physics world by producing some crazy results!

I am planning to visit CERN again sometime this November. I was there last November, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! CERN is the ultimate geek heaven!

Update!

2007-07-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

Long absence as usual! Have been writing a research paper for quite sometime now. And my boss is never impressed with the draft. Doing corrections all the time! Fortunately he promised me that we will be finished with the whole thing by the end of this week. Now that is some good news. Otherwise the last few weeks have been extraordinarily ordinary! Nothin much had happened! I plan to be more active from now on at least! (Yeah! I told that the last time too!)

Star Wars 30th Anniversary

2007-05-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

I gotta admit, Star Wars is one franchise that will always remain as one of the best ever made. Growing up in India, my first exposure to Star Wars happened only in 1997, when the digitally restored version of A New Hope hit the Indian theaters. Though I knew all about Star Wars before that, I was able to watch it only then. Now we get most of the big movies in India a week or two after their release in the US. My favorite amongst all the six movies is The Empire Strikes Back.

The thing about Star Wars is that, it completely changed the way movie making was done. And it spawned a whole culture in movie making. Even now when i hear the John Williams theme, i get goosebumps! It is unbelievable that even after 30 years, the franchise hasn't lost its charm and i am sure it would always be the one that started it all! Star Wars is and will always remain one of the geekiest movies of all time.

So lets celebrate the 30th Anniversary with pride! Thanx George and the entire team behind the phenomenon! Thank God, you didn't go ahead with Flash Gordon!

Wired Mag is running a special about Star Wars.

Here's the link to their Special Page

Star Wars Wired Special

2007-05-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

After a long time of absence, Iam back to resurrecting this blog. I have a lot to say to explain my absence, but i guess it is not that important. Anyway, I would give my opinion on a recent happening that I believe is worthy of a mention.

Lisa Randall, my favorite physicist, has been chosen as one of TIME Mag's 100 Most Influential People in the World. This is awesome and well deserved given her efforts over the last two years or so in tirelessly trying to explain to the general public about the fascinating times in physicy today. I wouldn't be surprised at all if she gets a ticket to Sweden sometime in the future considering the fact that her model might have real consequences!

Way to go Lisa!

Read the original Time article

Sleepwalking-NewScientist Article

2007-02-02T06:19:00.000-08:00

Sleepwalking woman had sex with strangers

Sleep medicine experts have successfully treated a rare case of a woman having sex with strangers while sleepwalking...

Here is something that I found worthy of a mention. I had battled sleepwalking for almost ten years, since I was 7. Luckily I benefitted from some experimental treatment and I stopped doing it when i was 17, but not without side effects! My sleeping has become totally random eversince, and there are times when I go without sleep for more than three days at a stretch and still feeling fine. But this article just shows how dangerous the problem might develop into. I just hope that the woman gets alright!

Read the rest of the article here

Intro

2006-12-29T20:49:00.000-08:00

After a lot of false starts, finally managed to post my first entry. Though I maintain a personal diary, its nice to get opinion of others on some topics that interest me (Computational Biology, Cosmology, Debian Linux, UFOlogy, Japanime etc.) . Hence, this one! Its 5 hrs in the morning and I am still up waiting for my simulations to end so that I could spend the weekend analyzing them (One of the pitfalls of being in the third year of your Doctoral program!). Besides I still have to read the final 100 pages or so of Warped Passages.

Lisa Randall is one of my favorite physicists. Its not an easy job to explain the concepts of extra dimensions and warped geometry of spacetime and their relation to the weakness of gravity, in a clear way that most readers can understand such abstract ideas properly. One thing that I loved in her book is her emphasis on the measurable consequences of the extra dimensional model that she developed, in sharp contrast to string theory related books that keep raving about the mathematical elegance of the theory but offers no clear experimental strategies to test the predictions made by it, though string theory will work only in a 11 dimensional setting.

Here is her full interview on Charlie Rose last week

In essence, she is one woman who is on a quest to to uncover the fabric of reality. Feels like my first entry is kinda ending abruptly. But no matter, I guess I can improvise from the next time! Though Fabric of Reality, String Theory etc. suggest that I may be a physicist, I am actually a Chemical Engineer, working in the area of Systems Biology (Project I am working on). You could say I am a closet physicist as well!

I would be trying to post stuff related to my interests here and am looking forward to getting some feedback! Oh, The Schwarzwald Singularity is the name of the novel that I had been trying to write for the past three years :(